Oregon Trail (PC) review

"Ah, the dutiful Oregon Trail. Always faithful. If you went to any elementary school in the eighties or ninties, you probably played this game on a trusty Apple computer."

Ah, the dutiful Oregon Trail. Always faithful. If you went to any elementary school in the eighties or ninties, you probably played this game on a trusty Apple computer. It was also ported to the IBM compatible machines. How does this relic stand the test of time? Rather well, considering it wasn't great to begin with.

In The Oregon Trail, you played the role of a group of settlers who's goal is to settle in the majestic Oregon Valley. Apparently, back in the day, Oregon was a nice place. Must have been before they cut all the trees down and put highways up instead.

Depending on the difficultly level you select, you start out with either twelve, six, or four hundred dollars. You also select what month you start, and from where. You use your available money to buy everything you'll need in your journey - oxen, food, bullets, spare parts, clothes, ect. Bad planning at the beginning of the game (spending too much money) can lead to disaster down the road.

Almost everything in the Oregon Trail is menu based, excluding one action scene towards the end and the hunting parts. In the hunting scenes, your little man is in the center of the screen, and you spin around to shoot animals. It isn't very exciting, and neither is most of the gameplay.

The difficultly level of The Oregon Trail is very easy. This game is obviously meant for the under fourteen crowd. It contains plenty of information about the actual Oregon Trail, and was used as an educational tool for ages upon ages.

Graphically, The Oregon Trail keeps things as a very basic level. When this game was made, CGA and EGA monoitors (four and eight colors respectively) were the high point for graphical technology. So accordingly, the graphics look like something my dog did in the backyard. The sound is generated by the PC speaker inside your computer, and as most people will tell you, it's simply insipid. Worse, you can only turn it off inside the game, unless you happen to have a PS/1 computer. And god have mercy on your soul if you do.

All in all, The Oregon Trail is not an outstanding game. If you have a little brother or sister, younger then twelve, then it might provide a little entertainment. ''Little'' being the key word in that sentence. The Oregon Trail simply doesn't offer enough excitement to snag your attention as more then a novelty of a long forgotten age.

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